Spotlight On Implementation: How Iconic Customer Service Can Boost Staff And Resident Satisfaction 

Signing on for a new senior living technology solution can be an intimidating leap to take. You’re not just committing to a significant financial investment, you’re also putting your credibility on the line as you ask your entire community – staff, residents, and families – to trust that this technology will truly have a positive impact on their lives. No pressure, right?

This is why implementation is such a vital piece of any technology investment. Ideally, your provider should be more of a partner than a vendor – and that’s the approach that Icon takes to implementation. 

In this piece, we’ll explain how our emphasis on adaptability, personalization, and relationship building makes it easier for residents and staff to embrace new senior living technology. The stronger the implementation process, the sooner your whole community will reap the benefits.     

Our Three Implementation Pillars Center Flexibility, Personalization, and Relationships

From initial demos and product training sessions to continuing education and on-site assistance, we want your Icon experience to result in your community’s success. That’s why we structure each implementation around three core pillars:

1. Flexibility: Do your staff members need additional training on our community engagement app? Do your residents need a more comprehensive walk-through of our Smart Aging™ technology? We go the extra mile to adapt to your community’s needs as they evolve. 
2. Relationship building: We take the time to get to know your residents and staff. And we’re just as committed to their success as you are. We want to make sure our technology solutions are working in your community, and we’ll stick around as long as it takes to be sure they are. 
3. A personalized path to success: No two senior living communities are exactly alike. So we don’t use one-size-fits-all metrics to measure success – and we’re not bound by the clock or the calendar. We’ll work with you to define implementation benchmarks based on your community’s individual pain points.

At the end of an implementation, we want to be able to answer the most important question of any engagement: Is our solution working to address your senior living community’s most pressing needs? 

We know our job’s done when we get an emphatic yes from you, your residents, and your staff. But those needs we mentioned – from retaining staff to building a more engaged resident population – can only be met if everyone’s on board with the technology. We’ll make sure they are. 

With A Phased Implementation, Your Residents and Staff Set the Pace

Icon’s approach to implementation plays out in six major phases that center your community’s needs at every step:

1. Planning: At the start of our engagement, we’ll work with you to lay out the business case for senior living technology and define the project scope. We’ll be sure your technology investment is geared toward enhancing your community and solving your most pressing needs. 
2. Kickoff: Next, we’ll assign project leaders and establish a timeline. We customize each kickoff to your community’s unique circumstances. 
3. Setup: In this phase, we focus on gathering resident and staff input. We also build out key digital elements (like the community calendar and digital signage) and ensure everything is integrated with the rest of your tech stack. We’re with you throughout this important step, with on-the-ground assistance to get your staff and residents comfortable with the coming changes.
4. Training: Group and one-on-one trainings – along with resident tech committees – are a fundamental part of our implementation process. After all, if administrators, staff, and tech-savvy residents can’t get a handle on your senior living technology, your whole community will struggle with adoption – and you’ll never see the benefits of your investment. 
5. Launch: From here on out, we’ll invest in making Icon’s technology an integral part of everyday life in your community. Your staff and residents should be excited about how the new technology will make their work easier and enrich their day-to-day experience. We’ll be there to help you get this kind of buy-in and enthusiasm. 
6. Support: We see this as one of the most important – and ongoing – pieces of any implementation. Other vendors may move on after implementation and leave you on your own. But Icon is in this for the long haul – and our white-glove customer support team will hop on the line to answer questions as they arise. 

One thing you won’t notice in any of the above phases is a one-size-fits-all mandate. Every implementation brings its own wrinkles and challenges. And we’ll be there until everything is working for your community. 

A Hands-On Approach Fosters Genuine Connections from Start to Finish

To maximize your implementation, we send our team into your community to live and work with our technology as you learn it. This allows us to be on the ground with you as our solutions filter into your community, and to be as responsive as possible if any friction areas arise. 

In our experience, this leaves a lasting impact. Some of our Icon implementation leaders have noted how much they’ve felt a part of the communities they’ve worked with – and how sorry staff were to see them go when the implementation ended. 

But we see implementation as an ongoing process, which is why we strive to be as available and responsive as possible even after your community is up and running. Maybe your staff was working well with Icon’s software when we left, but a few months later they have questions about certain functions they’d like to try. Or perhaps your residents aren’t quite picking up on certain features as much as you had hoped. In either case, we’re happy to set up sessions for them (and their families) to demystify the technology. 

In other words, just because an implementation has officially ended, we haven’t gone anywhere. We’re still just as ready and able as ever before to make sure our technology is working exactly like you want it to. 

Your Community Deserves a True Technology Partner, Not Just Another Vendor

How do we know our implementation process makes a difference to our customers? They tell us. One senior living community leader we worked with had this to say about our adaptability in particular: “I’ve worked with other technology companies before that say, ‘We really listen to our customers. We’ll take your suggestions and work on them.’ Icon took suggestions from our member focus groups and implemented them the next week.”

We hear comments like this all the time. Because while technology vendors may come and go (but mostly just go), a true partner committed to your success is a rarer find – and one your residents and staff richly deserve. A technology investment is a major step for your senior living community. Find out how Icon can help you make the most of it. Book a demo or reach out to start a conversation.